Further east the Canadian and French brigades had done well too, despite some of the critical comments coming from armchair warriors in this very room.
It was perfectly true that looking at the information currently available they could indeed have ranged further west towards the front and destroyed more artillery lines, fuel and ammunition dumps. However, the commanders of those two units did not have the benefit of digitally enhanced hindsight that their critics enjoyed. The commanders on the ground had to take a decision on how far their raiding parties could stretch their luck, before they ran into an armoured force and not just middle aged reservists doling out rations and rounds.
Henry’s job today, when he wasn’t answering questions from the President, was not to look concerned.
“General Shaw?”
Henry turned from the board and saw that the President was stood away from the main knot of onlookers and had a coffee mug in both hands. There was presently no sign of his physician.
He apparently wanted a word, and in comparative privacy too.
“Mr President?”
“It’s looking better, don’t you think?…I mean those divisions are totally cut off, boxed in on two sides and 4 Corps was been slowed but not stopped?”
“They can still win, sir.”
The President was silent and in thought for a long moment, but he made no attempt to offer the spare mug to Henry.
“By this time tomorrow sir our airborne operation will have begun to degenerate into guerrilla warfare as the paratroops run short of ammunition and anti-tank weapons in particular.”
The President winced and Henry was unsure whether it was his words as much as the heat of the coffee mugs burning the President’s hand. He relieved the President of one mug and smiled when he saw the printing and logo on the side. However, after taking a sip he continued.
“The French and Canadians at the river have only a small ammunition and fuel reserve. The Soviet’s won’t have to get creative when they attack them either, there will be no elaborate pincer moves to pin them in place because there is no need, the Elbe is doing that for them anyway. So you see Mr President, it all comes down to Vormundberg and how long they can hold because the centre of that line is creaking under the strain.”
The President looked at the plasma screen and the unit symbols where Henry had described.
The President raised his mug in salute; his was a high quality piece of pottery with the crest of the 82nd Airborne upon it.
Henry raised his own mug and clinked it against his commander-in-chiefs, but not too hard because his own was cracked and chipped, a cheap tourist souvenir that someone had probably bought on holiday in London. Henry drank from it proudly though, and looked again at the cheesy depiction on the side, of a soldier in a red tunic and wearing a bearskin complete with red plume.
An energy saving journey, at sometimes painfully slow speeds, had turned a not unpleasant one hour and ten minute train ride from Colchester to London’s Liverpool Street into one of purgatory, at three and a half hours duration.
Ray Tessler alighted carefully as he was far from ‘mended’ and had refused to take any of the offered seats on that overcrowded carriage his travel warrant permitted him to use. Being jostled, albeit it accidentally, had been character building in the extreme.
He was wearing new kit, and it gave off that slightly oniony odour of moth repellent that the MOD treats its uniforms with.
In addition to his aches and pains, Ray was feeling not a little pent up anger.
Held in military custody without charge, he had been questioned on whether or not he had overheard anything that would be of interest to a prosecution counsel in a war crimes trial.
Ray had answered all the questions truthfully. Sorry, but he had not help them. He had not heard anything about anti-personnel mines or prisoners being shot. However, if they would care to ask some questions that would be of interest to a defence counsel?
Ray was issued with new kit and a travel warrant before being sent on his way. He would not be returning to 1CG, he was now a member of 2CG. The 2nd Battalion was at full strength but he had four days leave before reporting for duty. There was a parting shot though, under no circumstances was he to contact anyone within 1CG and he was not to say a word about the questions he had been asked. To do so would tantamount to conspiracy, and grounds for immediate arrest. Did he understand?
Yes, Ray had assured them, he understood completely.
Ray found a pay phone and made a call.
“Hello, Mrs Reed? My name is Ray Tessler, Company Sergeant Major Tessler, and I need to speak to you urgently.”
For the third time in an hour Richard Dewar’s force slowly but carefully sank down into a firing positions as the sounds of other troops reached them on the wind.
During their infiltration of this most sensitive of regions of the People’s Republic of China he had been concerned at the lack of activity on the ground, as if they had known the combined US/UK force was coming, and had a trap waiting.
What Major Dewar had not known was that the same inclement weather that had for a time grounded the helicopters the PRC were using, had also caught the ground troops without arctic clothing and equipment.
With the arrival of arctic standard lubricants for the aircraft there also came skis, equipment and clothing, bringing a resumption of foot patrolling.
By sheer good fortune the snowfall had resumed before the withdrawing M&AWC had reached the top of the avalanche site, heavy enough for them to be able hear and not see a helicopter land and take off at a spot further along the gully.
Richard had correctly deduced that something heavier than the light reconnaissance machines was putting troops on the ground, reducing the time it would take to resume normal coverage of the security forces area of responsibility because of the snow.
The problem of enemy troops coming across the tracks left in the snow by the American and British troops had been covered without successful resolution in the planning stages. One of the proposals had been for the combined force to wear boots that copied the tread of those issued to the People’s Liberation Army, but all of the troops had vetoed that one. With two possible exceptions the British and US personnel all had feet much larger than the Asiatic norms, and besides which no one wanted to walk sixty-eight miles across mountains in brand new boots, the ones they had were broken in and fitted just fine, but thank you for asking anyway!
Richard lay in the snow now alerted by the sound of metal on rock, after which had followed fragmentary snippets of Cantonese, including laughter.
It was something of a relief to Richard, confirming the drop of troops in the area had nothing to do with them, they had not been compromised. A hunter force would hardly be talking, let alone joking around, if they were seeking an insurgent force or saboteurs.
Richard waited for ten minutes after the last sound of the enemy patrol had faded before resuming their march.
With Sergeant McCormack bringing up rear, Richard pushed on as quickly as he felt it safe to do, and hoped that that would be the last such hold up, because if their current rate of travel did not improve they could be for too close to the silos when the bomber force attacked.
Having arisen early Elena Torneski was looking for the first opportunity to leave the underground facility. It should not have been difficult she’d reasoned, because when she had left the Premier’s side for her bed, he had been euphoric at the army having crossed the Elbe and establishing a large bridgehead, but so few hours later the cleaners had been summonsed again to mop up gore from the floor of the Premier’s office.